Margaret Manning, Digital Government: talking to the people in a social world

• First Woman in Science and Technology

• Entrepreneur of the year EMEA

• Awarded by Blackberry for advancing women in technology

Meet the family

Reading Room…

• 180 staff in 4 countries

• European Gold marketing award winners

• Forrester rated – top digital branding

• Marketing – marketing directors favourite digital agency

Face book and twitter

The Cluetrain Manifesto

• A powerful global conversation

has begun.

• Through the Internet, people

are discovering and inventing

new ways to share relevant

knowledge with blinding

speed. As a direct result,

markets are getting smarter -

and getting smarter faster

than most companies.

• The original browser

These markets are conversations. Their members communicate in language that is natural, open, honest, direct, funny and often shocking.

Whether explaining or complaining, joking or serious, the human voice is unmistakably genuine. It can't be faked.

Most corporations, on the other hand, only know how to talk in the soothing, humourless monotone of the mission statement, marketing brochure, and your-call-is-important-to-us busy signal.

Same old tone. No wonder networked markets have no respect for companies unable or unwilling to speak as they do.

But learning to speak in a human voice is not some trick, nor will corporations convince us they are human with lip service about "listening to customers."

They will only sound human when they empower real human beings to speak on their behalf

While many such people already work for companies today, most companies ignore their ability to deliver genuine knowledge, opting instead to crank out sterile happytalk that insults the intelligence of markets literally too smart to buy it.

However, employees are getting hyperlinked even as markets are. Companies need to listen carefully to both. Mostly, they need to get out of the way so intranetworked employees can converse directly with internetworked markets.

So what do you need to join in the conversation?

• Be willing to listen

and converse

Be authentic

Listen to people!

So what do you need to join in the conversation?

• Have an agreed

process

• Have a great

platform

PersonalizationAnalyticsSEO

Social Media

Support Tickets

Email communications

Analytics

Content management

A typical digital communications set

Harmonize Cross-channel Communications

The last generation to ever need to learn to use the internet

These people expect a conversation

The US military is developing software that will let it secretly manipulate social media sites by using fake online personas to influence internet conversations and spread pro-American propaganda